424 quotes
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
Marriage and Morals (1929)
Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?
The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)
Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought.
Philosophy for Laymen (1946)
Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life. The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individuals as good as possible.
Political Ideals (1917)
The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival.
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967)
If you wish to know what men will do, you must know not only, or principally, their material circumstances, but rather the whole system of their desires with their relative strengths.
What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
Introduction to 1961 edition of Sceptical Essays (1961)
He was not an ascetic, but he despised luxury and the pursuit of artificial pleasures of the senses.
A certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not.
So far as I can remember, there's not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
I don't like the spirit of socialism – I think freedom is the basis of everything.
What was best in the Cynic doctrine passed over into Stoicism, which was an altogether more complete and rounded philosophy.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918)
The facts of science, as they appeared to him [Heraclitus], fed the flame in his soul, and in its light, he saw into the depths of the world.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918)
The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this: wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities.
Hawes The Logic of Contemporary English Realism (1923)
One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.
Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.
Library of Living Philosophers: The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell (1944)
The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940)
Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.
Principles of Mathematics (1903)